Aaron Elkins: Icy Clutches

"Chacun a son gout, said Minor, who hadn't joined in the hilarity.

"Owen's people spent the day on Tirku again,” John explained. “They brought back a box of stuff; mostly pretty ratty-looking. They're in the contact station."

"Are they human?"

"You're asking me?"

Gideon was out of his chair, fishing in his pocket for the key to the station. “I'm going to have a look. Anybody want to come along?"

"Sure,” Julie said, standing up too.

"Sure,” John said. “Come on, Julian, you'll learn something."

Minor hesitated. “I think I'd better use the time to go through the journal."

"No pots to stir this time,” Gideon told him. “I promise."

Minor permitted himself a faint, not-unfriendly smile. “Be that as it may,” he said.

"Weasel,” Gideon said tossing a tiny vertebra into the wastepaper basket. “Marten, maybe."

More bones and bone fragments followed. “Goat…bird-seagull, probably…bear…um, elk…"

"There aren't any elk around here,” Julie said.

"Okay, moose, if you're going to be like that. Cervidae, anyway…fox…bear…bear…goat… ah!"

He held up a flat, twisted piece of bone six or seven inches long and looking something like a dog's rawhide chew.

"Human?” Julie said.

John put one hand to his forehead and pointed at the bone with his other. “Scapula? Wait, wait, I mean, I mean-what the hell do I mean?” He scowled mightily. “Clavicle! Collarbone! Am I right?"

"On the button."

John beamed. “Why, John,” Julie said, “I'm impressed."

He nodded modestly toward Gideon. “Well, you know, I took that class from him in Saint Malo."

"Amazing,” Gideon said. “I guess there must be something to this sleep-learning business after all."

"Hey, come on, I wasn't sleeping. I just like to get relaxed. It helps my concentration."

"He was snoring,” Gideon told Julie. “Nobody could hear what I was saying. I had to ask the guy next to him to give him a nudge."

Unexpectedly, John broke into one of his brief, gleeful peals of joy. “You know what the guy answered?” he asked Julie. “He said, ‘You put him to sleep, you wake him up.’”

"How would you know?” Gideon said. “You were asleep. Okay"-he held the bone out to John-"right or left?"

John spoke with convincing authority. “Right.” Then, after a moment: “Left?"

"That narrows it down, all right. Well, they're easy to confuse. But it's a right. And it's adult male."

"I agree,” John said soberly.

"I'm relieved to hear it.” Gideon had switched on a gooseneck lamp over the counter. He was turning the clavicle over and over directly under the light, tilting it, fingering it, seeing what else it could tell him. Clavicles are not among the most informative of bones, and this one had no visible pathology, no sign of trauma, no unusual genetic variation.

But it did have epiphyses. “I'd put the age at about twenty-five, like everything else we've found. I think we can assume it's another piece of Pratt or Fisk."

He used a sliding caliper to measure the maximum length. “Pretty big,” he murmured. “A shade under 172 millimeters."

"How do you tell a clavicle's male?” Julie wanted to know.

"Hey, ask him," John said. He let himself down into the armchair near the counter and stretched comfortably out.

"Pretty much like any other bone,” Gideon explained, sliding the caliper closed. “Size…robusticity…roughness. The bigger and rougher the clavicle, the bigger and more heavily muscled the person it came from. And the bigger and more muscular the person, the better the chance it's a male."

"But-” Julie chewed momentarily on the side of her lip. “I know we've had this discussion before, but-well, there are a lot of women around who are bigger and stronger than a lot of men, aren't there? There are women athletes, women weight lifters-"

"She's right, Doc,” John said. “And don't forget about steroids. Women take steroids these days, too."

Gideon shook his head. “Steroids make bones thicker but not longer. In fact, they're as likely to stunt them as anything else. They make for premature ossification, so the bones stop growing before they should. Anyway, we're not talking about ‘these days.’ This is from 1960; there weren't too many women taking steroids in 1960."

"Yeah, he's right,” John said to Julie. “Not a hell of a lot of female weight lifters then either."

"I wasn't thinking of weight lifters,” Julie said. “I was thinking of Jocelyn Yount; six feet tall, athletic-and killed in the avalanche. Why not her?"

Gideon shook his head. “This clavicle's male. Take my word for it, people."

Julie looked at John. “Does he always get this defensive?"

"Yeah,” John said. “Usually."

"Who's getting defensive?” Gideon asked. “You have to remember, I've had tons of experience with this stuff, I've looked at a zillion clavicles-"

"The last resort of the pedant,” Julie said scornfully.

"Oh, hell, I wouldn't say that,” John said equably. “I mean, how can you argue with ‘Take my word for it, I've looked at a zillion clavicles'?"

Properly humbled, Gideon raised his hands in submission. “All right, I'm sorry. You're right. I admit, I can't know this is a male clavicle. Unless you have a pelvis, you can't be a hundred percent sure, but I'd still bet money on it. Look, it's true that there are a lot of women around who are taller than most men-"

"Jocelyn Yount, for example,” Julie said, “and her sister Shirley too."

"My wife,” John said. “Marti's practically as tall as I am."

"Right,” Gideon said, nodding, “and maybe her legs are as long as yours, or her arms, or her ribs, but some things aren't as big."

"Her feet, for instance,” Julie said. “No offense, John."

"I was thinking of her shoulders,” Gideon said. “Women's shoulders are narrower than men's, and it's a question of genes, not exercise. You have to look a long, long time before you find a woman, no matter how big, whose shoulders are as broad as even the average guy's. I mean a long time. Maybe the female shot-putting champion of the Soviet Union has shoulders like this, but that's about it."

Julie and John looked confused. “Shoulders like what?” Julie asked. “What do shoulders have to do with anything?"

Gideon held up the bone. “Look. This clavicle's 172 millimeters long. That's a good three standard deviations above the female norm. Your chance of finding a woman with a clavicle like this is well under half of one percent."

"I still don't get it,” John said. “You're saying how wide your shoulders are depends on how big your clavicle is?"

"The clavicle runs from the sternum-here, at the middle of the upper chest-over the top and out to the scapula, the shoulder blade. And what it does is act as a strut to keep that shoulder blade pushed out to the side and back. Long clavicles, wide shoulders; short clavicles, narrow shoulders."

"Is that right?"

"Sure. Without those little things our arms would be lying flat against the walls of our chests. We wouldn't be able to rotate them. They'd just be able to go pretty much back and forth, like a dog's front legs. Look at a dog's shoulders. Or a cow's, or a horse's."

"Yeah,” John said, fingering the path of his own clavicle. “Wait a minute, a cow doesn't even have shoulders. I mean, not like a person."

"Aha,” Gideon said.

"No clavicle?"

"No clavicle."

"Son of a gun.” John grinned, pleased, as he always was, to pick up another arcane osteological tidbit.

"This is all very interesting,” Julie said, “but you said a minute ago there was a half-of-one-percent chance-"

"I said less than a half-of-one-percent chance."